


The Nursing Assistant's Tale

by Crux01



Category: Homeland
Genre: Angst, Broken Soldier, Clarence is a good guy honest, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 06 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 17:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9196583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crux01/pseuds/Crux01
Summary: Why? I hear you ask. Dunno, I respond, Clarence just spoke to me.........





	

More fucking bedpans to clean in the never-ending production line of stinking piss and shit this goddamn place produced, monotonous and mountainous volumes of the stuff and Clarence knew from bitter experience that the faucet in the sluice room was running cold again. On his feet all day, no rest since he came on shift eight hours ago, his own putrid sweat stinging his nostrils, strong and unpleasant, and it was winning the battle for supremacy over his almost equally vile cheap aftershave. To cap it all he'd been punched in the mouth by that new patient in room six, when he tried to help to restrain him. Clarence had only just managed to hold on to his volatile temper and not fight back. Sometimes he wasn’t quite so measured. But that fucker was strong, they all were when they wanted to be. Shame they didn't put the same amount of energy into getting better as they did into being badass motherfuckers. Clarence could still feel the jagged ridge where his teeth had cut into his gum behind his tongue, taste the familiar brittle iron as blood lazily trickled into his mouth for the millionth time. Verbal abuse, physical abuse, violence; he suffered it all, on a daily basis, for a wage that didn't go far enough in surroundings that were never more than barely adequate. 

And he was supposed to care.

He had bought one of his kids, probably Leroy, a box of toy soldiers a couple of years back. The last time the kid's mother had let him visit, (they didn't get on very well which was nothing unusual because Clarence didn't get on well with any of the mothers of his kids. His temper was a thing of violent passion that he couldn't always control and it had demonstrated on numerous occasions, in many different ways, that he just wasn't cut out to be a father) Clarence had noticed that over half the soldiers were discarded when the kid got them out to play with, left, unused in the box, broken and awaiting someone to repair them. Feeling an uncommon rush of parental concern, Clarence had gone to a local store, got a tube of glue and fixed them as best he could. Yes, it had been Leroy, he remembered his son’s big toothless smile when the kid had certainly seemed grateful for the intervention even though a number of the soldiers were still wobbly and one wouldn't stand up at all. Clarence thought this VA Hospital was like Leroy's toy box, full of broken warriors waiting for magic glue so they could return to the fight good as new. Only repairing them wasn't as easy as popping out to the store. If it had been, he would have done it willingly but Clarence knew, wasn't no glue that could mend the damage suffered by these tragic guys.

So, Clarence did the best he could, most of the time. They all did but they all knew it just wasn't good enough. And as each day of unrelenting misery and despair stuttered to its ignominious end, as he lost what little spirit he had begun the day with, Clarence would often sneak away for a couple of minutes.

Just two minutes, stolen at the end of the shift, he deserved them. Just to take the weight off his feet, to chill and relax and let out all the stress that had twisted his muscles, taunt and tight, stretched to almost breaking point, allow it to ease away. Innocent enough. Catch up on Facebook, checkout the odds on the game later, leer over a pretty face, just be human for a second. Wasn't too much to ask. Was it?

And then that blonde viper appeared, spitting venom at him, demanding he answer her needs, like he didn't get that enough with the fucking patients! It slighted his virility, pricked his pride, of course, but it seemed easier just to surrender, to tell her what she wanted and get rid of her.

Yes, he had taken 'Mr Quinn' out of the hospital. Yes, he knew where he was.... probably. Yes, he would tell her just so she would fuck off. But she wasn't finished, not by a long way, still wanted to make him pay. That look she threw at him for only a couple of seconds was hateful enough to shrink his very soul. Then, to his relief, with a flash of angry bobbing golden hair, thankfully, she was gone.

She was a pretty little thing, in her ballsy, aggressive way, he thought, sliding back down in his chair now the source of fear that stiffened his muscles, forcing him to sit straight, had gone. He shrugged as if reasserting his masculinity to the empty room. He knew her of course, she was here every day. He'd watched her pretty pert ass enough to feel a lustful stirring down below on a number of occasions. But he knew she was out of his league.

She was out of fucking Peter Quinn's league as well. But Clarence knew it hadn't always been so. The guy had been somebody, once. Not just your common grunt, oh no. Clarence had watched the video, Christ everyone here had seen it. He remembered the hospital seemed to take a collective gasp, fuelled by communal shock and awe, when they had watched it. Everyone seemed to be on a phone, at a screen, mesmerised, watching their new patient dying horrifically. Shit, it was the illegal full-on version that somebody had hacked from somewhere that they all saw. No tv sanitisation like on the news channels, every fucking spasm and every fucking pathetic gasp. Clarence had seen some pretty horrific shit in his time, most of it in this god forsaken place, but nothing like that.

But, by some truly amazing miracle, the big shot spy guy hadn't died. He'd lived enough to become a patient in their exclusive little establishment. Surely, he deserved better? Why the fuck the CIA, cos that's who he'd heard this guy was, or had been, didn't look after their fallen warriors better than this, Clarence didn't know. Why didn't the country look after any of its heroes better than sending them here, forgetting them, leaving them to die in this shit hole? Yes, like a doomed comet blazing across the night sky Quinn had been famous in this hospital, his arrival anticipated with macabre interest but his fall to earth had been swift and final, his damage heart-breakingly apparent. The world had moved on quickly in search of other more palatable heroes, forgotten this man’s pain, his courage. Now he was just like the others here; unfixable, embarrassing, forgotten, used up and discarded in the toy box.

Clarence had to admit he liked Quinn, though. This particular broken soldier was pretty harmless now. Left side paralysed, motor skills affected, talking not good, sad and desperate but still he could be good company. Christ, the guy deserved to have some fun, he had fuck all else to look forward to and Quinn was a lot better than most of the other crazy shits in this place, except when the blonde woman came. That seemed to upset him, like he felt guilty, ashamed of his condition, then Clarence felt even more pity for the poor guy.

And Clarence knew that disability didn't mean that you lost your desire, man still had needs. This soldier had seen the world, lived through tough shit, knew what was real, it was only human that he needed a release. A release the VA hospital, or his blonde beauty for that matter, couldn't give him. Clarence wanted to do right by him. Give him a little escape, a little of what he deserved. Man, the guy was a hero. 

So, what if Clarence took a little of his pension? That's capitalism; he had his own expenses to cover. It wasn't as if Quinn had anything better to spend it on. It would have all gone on drugs and hookers. Shit, Clarence had rent to pay, mouths to feed and for all of the mind-numbing hours he spent in this place, his wages just didn't cut it far enough. He hadn't done anything wrong, not really. A few weeks back he had rescued Quinn when those crack-faced hookers, Clarice and her friends, had left the poor boy crashed out in the bath. Shit, Clarence was doing the guy a service.

Clarence shuddered; the way that blonde bitch looked at him before she left, withered him to his tainted core. Made him uneasy and he worried that there may be repercussions for him. She came from a different world. She was the one with power, could make big trouble for him.

She was also desperate, exhausted and losing heart but she was clinging to her hope, still. Hope that one day, her Peter Quinn, the man she had known and obviously loved, would come back to her. Clarence pictured them together before the unimaginable happened. Even beneath his despair and hobo appearance it was clear Quinn was a handsome guy. They must have had everything, been everything that Clarence was not; a formidable spy, (he had infiltrated a fucking jihadist terror cell for Chrissakes, saved all those people in Berlin,) and his lady. A beautiful privileged couple, a real fairy-tale pair, too good for this world and that was how it had turned out. A shaft of jealousy spiked through Clarence as his mind gasped the only explanation it could find; that the sex between the couple must have been awesome, had to have been, to keep pulling her back to this shit, to keep giving her hope when there was none.

Clarence shook his head sorrowfully. Her Quinn wasn't coming back. Wasn't gonna happen any time soon. Soldiers as damaged as him didn't get better, they just got lost in the system until one day they disappeared and nobody noticed. Maybe Quinn had been a big shot spy once, but not anymore, his friends in power had forsaken him as quickly as his motor skills. All except her, reaching for him still, needing him, even if it was only through the wisps of sacred but fading memories of the man he once was, lost forever. Unwilling to let him go.

Give your body, your soul, your life, for your country and how did it repay you? For the millionth-time Clarence thanked god he hadn't passed the medical he'd had as a teenager, hadn't been good enough to join the marines. He had tried to join up on a short-lived whim, a dream to have an improved life, a misplaced hope that there could be something better for him, rather like the one the blonde beauty was hanging on to now. This shit hole was all Clarence was good for, cleaning bed pans his major talent, that and perilously traversing the agonisingly thin line between struggling but just getting by and miserably failing. 

So, what if he had taken a vulnerable patient to a crack house. So, what if he had taken a little of Quinn's money in payment? At least he cared enough to have done that. Nobody else in this place cared that much and even the beautiful blonde didn't care enough to take Quinn away from this place, to give him what he needed. She wanted only what he had been, not what he had become.

Not someone who had ever been known to overthink a situation or indeed worry about the consequences of his actions, and with his shift over, Clarence pocketed his phone, stood up, and slouched toward the locker room. He knew nobody would call him out on his actions. He had done it before so many times and got away with it. And he would do it again cos he cared enough to take the risk. Cared enough to listen when the patients asked for non-regulation therapy and he was connected enough to be able to deliver. His conscience was clear and the beautiful blonde with her accusatory stare could just fuck off back to her pristine existence of entitlement and privilege. He was quite happy to wallow like a boar in the desperate, brutal and unforgiving hopelessness that was his world. He had to be because this particular box of broken toys was all he would ever know.


End file.
